Wrapping up this week on EDU Checkup I first reviewed University of Maryland University College and was presently surprised to see some features that I have never encountered before on a highered website. The first was a “test drive course” feature where prospective students can take a course for free in exchange for some personal information. The second was a “interested courses” list that is part of the entire website. When viewing a course you can save it without signing in or being a student. Lastly, building on the saved course list a user can email their interested courses to themselves or others. Although these features are not earth shattering, they are innovative from a highered user experience perspective.

Secondly, I reviewed the Bridgewater College website, which is not on eduStyle.net yet, but should be. The website in my opinion has a great intent but fell flat on its face with the execution. The homepage is cluttered with link lists, each grouping of links had a different color scheme and the movement on the page continued to distract me. Looking for degree programs and their details led me to too many dead ends. The code of the site didn’t fair any better, it was obviously cobbled together by a CMS, which was unfortunate.

If you’re interested in having your university (or one of your competitors) reviewed publicly or privately feel free to submit your site. Over half of the sites reviewed on EDU Checkup are by request.

This Week’s Reviews

Keep up up with @educheckup on twitter and RSS for more site updated in the coming weeks. Or if you prefer, an iTunes feed is available so you can get new episodes automatically.

About the Author

Nick is the Associate Director of Web Communications at Wayne State University. As host of the video blog, EDU Checkup, he reviews higher education websites from the point of view of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites. He is a staff writer at .eduGuru, a higher education marketing and web development blog. He takes an active role in the higher education web community by sharing his thoughts and real world analysis in the Wayne State Web Communications Blog.

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on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 at 8:10 am and is filed under EDU Checkup.
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